President Donald Trump met with local leaders and federal responders
shortly after landing at an Air Force base in Carolina, Puerto Rico, for
what was supposed to be a briefing on the situation on the island.

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Instead, Trump turned it into an opportunity to congratulate himself and
the federal government's response to the disaster and to say the island
should be very proud of its low official death count.

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He downplayed throughout his remarks how dire things are in Puerto Rico,
where more than half of the people don't have power, running water, or
cellphone service two weeks after Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm,
tore through the island.

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"We have gone all out for Puerto Rico," Trump said during the televised
briefing Tuesday. "It's not only dangerous, it's expensive."

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And while Puerto Rico clearly needs much more aid including help from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency to repair its damaged infrastructure
Trump decided to focus on how much money it had already spent.

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"I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you are throwing our budget out of
whack," he said. "We've spent a lot of money in Puerto Rico."

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(As I explain here, FEMA has yet to authorize full disaster aid for Puerto
Rico).

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The most uncomfortable part of Trump's remarks came when he began to
compare Puerto Rico to Hurricane Katrina based on how many people had
died, implying what was happening in Puerto Rico wasnt a real catastrophe.

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If you look at the every death is a horror, but if you look at a real
catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous hundreds and
hundreds of people that died and what happened here with a storm that was
just totally overbearing. No one has ever seen anything like that. What is
your death count?" he said.